Destination wedding/enjoying honeymoon with guest around after?

Surely someone else has encountered this before! Originally my fiancé and I were going to elope to couples Negril get married and spend another few days in paradise! recently though Fiancé has been talking about inviting immediate family members, which I am ok with and actually I think would be nice. We have brought it up to them and they all seem on board but understand if we opt to go alone still as well. Fiancé is all about it, I however do have some resistance because I worry it will be hard to enjoy our days after the wedding honeymooning with all of our family members hanging around as well (especially since we planned to possibly sneak over to the AN beach if we got daring enough). Has anyone encounters this before, was it an issue? How did you get around it? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Hubby and I got married at CSA in Oct 2004. We were married on a Sat (10/2/04). We arrived on Wed. My parents flew in from FL and arrived on Thur. My hubby's family (parents and brothers) flew in from the UK and arrived about a week and a half before we did. Made sense that they stayed the longest since it was a long way to travel (so they were there for 2 weeks). They all left on Sunday (the day after our wedding) and we left on Monday (day after that) to go to the Bahamas for our honeymoon for 5 additional days. Looking back, I wish we would have just stayed at CSA! Back then it was required to stay 5 nights to get a free wedding and we had to be there 48-72 hours before our actual wedding day.

I also wanted a day w/ my hubby's family before my parents arrived so I could actually meet my soon to be in-laws. I had never met any of them until the few days before our wedding!

It worked out fine for us. Maybe have them leave the day after your wedding like we did? Then you can have the rest of your time there alone.

I have not yet experienced this, but I also have the same fear. We are going on our wedding-moon at CTI September 15-21st and my in-laws are attending and they will also be there for the entire trip. I am extremely happy that they are going, but I can't help but fear any awkward run-ins or embarrassing moments during the "honeymoon" days..

I agree with Allans_Angel. Get married at CSA, then transfer to CN for your honeymoon. CSA has no a/n facilities, so there will be no embarrassing nude meet-ups with relatives. You can enjoy spending time with your respective families in the day or two before the wedding and on your wedding day. Perhaps enjoy breakfast together the morning after your wedding, and then begin your honeymoon at the nearby CN--just the two of you.

Thanks everyone for your input, it is actually a non issue again as we have decided to just make the trip the two of us again for reasons beyond our control it just works out better this way... As much as I would love to have loved ones there to celebrate with us, my dads health isn't that great and he's been told he shouldn't travel very far, we don't feel it would be right to invite one side of the family knowing my family can't make it as well. We will just plan something special for everyone when we arrive back home Thanks again for the responses!

We had 20 people at our wedding and had a great time. It was a mix of friends, siblings, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. We arrived on a tuesday and they all arrived on thursday, with many of them on the same flights. Our wedding was friday morning at 10am bc we figured that everybody paid good money to see us and that way they could enjoy the rest of the day. I booked everyone on the cat cruise that afternoon and we had a blast, my 78 yr father even went off the sliding board and dropped about 20 feet. He only did that bc I wouldn't let him jump off the cliff they all left on sunday and we stayed until friday. Relax and have a good time with our family bc when will you ever have the chance to be in Jamaica with them again??

I realize that the OP said this was a non-issue but just in case others out there (like soontobemrsv) are facing the same dilemma, I thought I'd share my experience and thoughts.

My husband and I did not have a destination wedding, but we were married in the coastal city where I was living at the time, which happens to be a very popular vacation destination. Most of our wedding guests had to travel at least a half-day to attend our wedding. Since so many people traveled a great distance to attend our wedding, we thought that having a "morning after brunch" would be a nice way to spend more time with some of our guests and would make the trip worthwhile for them. The brunch invitation clearly said that the end time was 2:00 pm but at 6:00 pm many of our guests were still hanging around our suite and gave no indication that they planned to leave anytime soon. It created a lot of tension for me and my new husband because, as much as we were fond of our guests, we wanted a few hours to "wind down" from all the wedding festivities before getting up early the next morning to catch our plane. The guests were, of course, oblivious to our frustration and were very happy to hang out all evening with us in our beautiful suite overlooking the water. We didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by asking them to leave, but we finally had to tell everyone that we were exhausted (true!) and that we needed to get to sleep VERY early due to our very early flight the next morning.

So, if you are planning on getting married at Couples and having family/friends come all the way to Jamaica to witness your union, I think it's reasonable to expect them to want to spend a lot of time with you while they are there. If you are at the same resort as your guests it's probably not possible to have a private or romantic honeymoon, as you'll constantly be running into friends and family who will want to spend time with you. I don't think that escaping to another resort after your wedding and leaving your guests behind is a good solution, either. Your guests will have come all the way to Jamaica to celebrate your wedding with you and after spending all that money and taking time off from work to attend your wedding they will likely have hurt feelings and be somewhat resentful if you run off to be alone at a different resort. Personally, I think the best option for those who are going to have a destination wedding is to do it just the two of you, which will allow you to have a romantic and private honeymoon. Then have a reception with friends and family once you return home.

I realize that the OP said this was a non-issue but just in case others out there (like soontobemrsv) are facing the same dilemma, I thought I'd share my experience and thoughts.

My husband and I did not have a destination wedding, but we were married in the coastal city where I was living at the time, which happens to be a very popular vacation destination. Most of our wedding guests had to travel at least a half-day to attend our wedding. Since so many people traveled a great distance to attend our wedding, we thought that having a "morning after brunch" would be a nice way to spend more time with some of our guests and would make the trip worthwhile for them. The brunch invitation clearly said that the end time was 2:00 pm but at 6:00 pm many of our guests were still hanging around our suite and gave no indication that they planned to leave anytime soon. It created a lot of tension for me and my new husband because, as much as we were fond of our guests, we wanted a few hours to "wind down" from all the wedding festivities before getting up early the next morning to catch our plane. The guests were, of course, oblivious to our frustration and were very happy to hang out all evening with us in our beautiful suite overlooking the water. We didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by asking them to leave, but we finally had to tell everyone that we were exhausted (true!) and that we needed to get to sleep VERY early due to our very early flight the next morning.

So, if you are planning on getting married at Couples and having family/friends come all the way to Jamaica to witness your union, I think it's reasonable to expect them to want to spend a lot of time with you while they are there. If you are at the same resort as your guests it's probably not possible to have a private or romantic honeymoon, as you'll constantly be running into friends and family who will want to spend time with you. I don't think that escaping to another resort after your wedding and leaving your guests behind is a good solution, either. Your guests will have come all the way to Jamaica to celebrate your wedding with you and after spending all that money and taking time off from work to attend your wedding they will likely have hurt feelings and be somewhat resentful if you run off to be alone at a different resort. Personally, I think the best option for those who are going to have a destination wedding is to do it just the two of you, which will allow you to have a romantic and private honeymoon. Then have a reception with friends and family once you return home.

CAGIRLINTX-Thank you for taking the time and writing such a great response..I agree completely with your sentiments..As my in-laws are already booked and fully paid it will definitely not be a just the two of us wedding/honeymoon..I think it will still be great and tons of fun..If there are any awkward run ins I plan on handling them gracefully and enjoying my honeymoon to the fullest! Thanks again for your thoughts and reply

This is a very important topic that need to be talked about with. Yeah! your right. it all happens all the time especially with so called destination wedding where all the guest and family members that was invited during the actual wedding are still hanging around even after the ceremony or through the couples honeymoon. Very awful and at the same time ackward. I didnt experience it actually but a friend of mine does during their wedding. Their parents stay with few days after the wedding.

This is a very important topic that need to be talked about with. Yeah! your right. it all happens all the time especially with so called destination wedding where all the guest and family members that was invited during the actual wedding are still hanging around even after the ceremony or through the couples honeymoon. Very awful and at the same time ackward. I didnt experience it actually but a friend of mine does during their wedding. Their parents stay with few days after the wedding.

Surely someone else has encountered this before! Originally my fiancé and I were going to elope to couples Negril get married and spend another few days in paradise! recently though Fiancé has been talking about inviting immediate family members, which I am ok with and actually I think would be nice. We have brought it up to them and they all seem on board but understand if we opt to go alone still as well. Fiancé is all about it, I however do have some resistance because I worry it will be hard to enjoy our days after the wedding honeymooning with all of our family members hanging around as well (especially since we planned to possibly sneak over to the AN beach if we got daring enough). Has anyone encounters this before, was it an issue? How did you get around it? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Not sure if anyone has suggested this yet. Your guests are required to stay for three days minimum. Have your guests check out the day after your wedding, perhaps? We opted to do just the two if us on the beach at CSA this past April. We then did a ceremony/reception back home a few weeks later for all friends and family to be there. I have two granddaughters and couldn't have had them at Couples, so it was a win-win for everyone!

My husband I did a destination wedding in 2007...we were married in Hawaii. Part of deciding to invite people to spend any kind of money and their vacation time to travel was also deciding that we would be spending time with them both before and after. If this is something you are on the fence about...then I suggest you don't invite anyone. Our families did give us a couple days on our own afterwards, everyone did excursions and what not and did not include us. It was perfect. But we had this conversation with our folks when we were planning everything and again...everyone was on the same page a so no feelings were hurt when we wanted to sneak away and we didn't get upset when we were asked to join everyone. We had a wonderful Hawaiian themed casual reception for our extended families and a party at a bar for our friends when we got back.

Our first trip we met a couple from Scotland that were there to get married just by themselves and another couple that had gotten married at a family hotel (so younger family members could attend) and then they honeymooned at CN. Our second trip to Jamaica, we went to CTI and were invited by the drunk soon to be groom to his wedding two days later. They had not invited any friends or family because they were worried about asking people to spend that kind of money but had the full on reception when they got home. We are actually still friends with this couple.

So no matter what you do...try and remember that yes, this is your day. But if you ask people to share your day, you have to be okay in sharing a bit of your time.

We renewed our vows a few years ago at CSA. We got married at the court house so for our 15th we wanted to have our "wedding". We invited family and friends and had 5 couples join us. We planned on spending 2 weeks at CSA. We wanted everyone to get there Monday, have vows on Thursday, they leave Monday, giving us 1 week at CSA without family. Well, some thought it would be better to arrive Wednesday and stay a week only giving us 4 days alone. What can you do......

If we could do it over again we would of had the wedding at one Couples resort and then switched to another Couples resort after the wedding.

My husband and I were married last year at CSA. We also had family come with us and we all traveled there together. After making the initial reservations for everyone, we got to thinking about this exact same issue. So we decided to extend our stay an additional three days. The family was there for 7 and we were there for 10 days. We were married on a Friday (had been there since Monday) and the rest of the family left the Monday following the ceremony. We stayed on the additional few days. We felt this allowed us and our families time together, but also allowed for some alone time for the two of us. We were able to sign up for Romance Rewards ahead of time and went to CN for the day so we could try out AN once the family had left. It worked really well for us...and this year we will celebrate our first anniversary back at CN this time.

M&C

Melissa & Chris
Married at CSA on 12/14/12 (12/110/12-12/20/12)
Booked for CN 12/13/13-12/21/13